Free association.

Freedom of the individual.

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ISP's are trying to limit what citizens have access to as subscribers to their service - thereby limiting free speech.

Government's then have the responsibility to legislate what the ISP's do in order to protect the free speech that they guarantee the citizens.

This argument appears sound superficially. There are some problems.

The ISP's are run by citizens themselves and have a right to establish terms of service for the voluntary contracts that govern the provision of internet access. While most people would not agree to the form of censorship that are at the core of this issue - the proper remedy is to allow competitors see this opportunity to gather marketshare and offer services that are free of such censorship. This would attract more business to them and put pressure on the offending company to change their policy - while preserving the rights of all parties involved.

Allowing the foot in the door of government regulations over what ISP's can do makes it more likely for the government to take other steps in controlling what ISP's allow. It takes no great imagination to see a future administration making the case that certain websites or topics work against the overall national security and well being and as such threaten all of our rights and so should be blocked. By establishing a precedent where the government has a lever on what ISP's can do, this sort of Chinese style censorship 'for the common good' is made closer to reality. This is the ironic truth that Orwell exposed when he made all of the government departments in 1984 have names that were the opposite of what they actually did. The Department of Peace actually managed the war, Department of Love handled torture, etc. In this case - a government program to ensure net neutrality would actually work to ensure government control over the means of communication - thereby facilitating censorship.

My guess for Woz response to #1:
No matter what, one party is losing the ability to speak freely. The general population or the few citizens running the ISP. The lesser of two evils is clear and government intervention is the only solution.

My guess for Woz response to #2:
And if the Government strictly allows ISPs to restrict free speech, this opens the door to even more companies restricting free speech for gain. It increases the chance of cell phone companies ending your calls for talking bad about their company or friends. Again, either way someone loses their free speech, and if you so choose to call it that, yes this law to Promote Free Speech will ironically "take free speech away" from the companies. But that would be failing to see the big picture of it also providing it to the people.

Feel free to respond. I often pretend to be a liberal at libertarian parties. Everyone agreeing is so boring.

Regarding hypothetical Woz response #1 - my point #2 illustrates how it is not immediately clear what the worst evil is. At least without government intervention, the public still has the option of switching to an ISP that doesnt have built in censorship. Once you have government control, if things go south, then we endup with a China style environment where every ISP will have to have those restrictions.

regarding your hypothetical Woz response #2 - Companies dont just do things that the government decides not to restrain them in. The very existence of the companies depends on them provided a service that consumers want. If an ISP restricts access to certain sites, there will be a market pressure for unrestricted access. Other companies will move in to fill that void. This works in every type of market - so long as there is no interference on the part of government to prevent the market from adapting.

Think of the scenario with ATT's unlimited data plan for the iPhone - Once they removed that option, other companies started advertising that they would offer unlimited data (check out Verizon or http://www.straighttalksim.com/). People who valued this freedom could then switch. If enough people jumped ship there would be tremendous pressure on ATT to find a way to reinstate the option. Similar concept.

1) This is about at its philosophical end. If you place violation of self ownership over damage to the community when it comes to rating evil/injustice, you are libertarian. Otherwise you believe the good of the community comes first or what the ISPs are doing is categorically wrong.

As a "liberal" I would ask you to estimate the number of people who have restricted speech the moment the bill is passed and decide if you really chose in the benefit of free speech in general or of a few. I disagree that the government using this law as a gateway drug (#cheapanalogy) is relevant to this issue. It is separate, and if the government is capable of doing more harm because of this, then additional laws should be added to restrict the governmental growth ability.

2) Well in that case, there are only 2 solutions to this problem, and one of them is not "doing nothing".

--Pass a bill that removes any recognition that ATT or Telecoms in general are special in any way, and treat them exactly the same as any other large company no one cares about, cutting the government interference that allows them to oligarchize/monopolize. (as a "liberal" I would argue against this along the lines that communication is essential to society and therefor it should be handled more than not by government to ensure the community is protected from losses)

-- Pass a bill that prevents oligarchies or monopolies from infringing on your rights.....If you can see the government as a monopoly, and I know you can because you call it a monopoly of force, then why should free speech laws be restricted to the government? Do you really like corporations so much more than the government, that corporations should be allowed to abuse power but the government not?

Doing enough verbal discussions with friends and coworkers about moral reasoning and politics to pick up cheap tricks for arguments.
For example:

On the last section starting with -- , I know that statists fail to recognize social contract on which government was originally created. Because of this, liberals view corporations and government as both just powerful entities that can control you, except at least in government we choose our leaders. Using this I can say high level stuff like "why should free speech laws be restricted to the government" and leave most libertarians stuttering because the reasoning that makes the question possible is fundamentally wrong from a libertarians perspective.

Regarding your point # 1) I agree that you can distill the issue down to core principles and you bring up the principle that is at the heart of this and many other issues. And that is do rights exist only in proportion to their affect over the community in general or do they originate and should be protected at the level of the individual. Essentially - should our system be collectivist or individualist in nature. There are several factors which have let me to come to the conclusion that rights are inherently individual.

If one assumes that rights belong to the collective rather than the individual then it follows that a determination must be made about what is right for the collective. This invariably takes the form of utilitarian rationale i.e. Legislation should provide for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. A simple thought experiment is useful to see how this can lead to unacceptable outcomes:

Imagine that you are a doctor seeing a healthy young patient for a physical checkup. Down the hall there are four critically ill patients: patient with lung failure, a patient with heart failure, a patient with liver failure and a patient with kidney failure-each of these patients will die to to the failure of their organ systems. If we adopt the principle that what is right is what will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people, then the doctor would be justified in sacrificing the healthy patient in order to harvest the lungs, kidney, liver and heart in order to provide the life-saving organs to be for the critically ill patients. In this case instead of four people dying, only one person would die and four lives would be saved. As you can imagine people would quickly stop going to see doctors under this scenario.

If one, instead, assumes that Rights belong to the individual, the doctor could then have no rational basis upon which to sacrifice a single healthy living person in order to save for critically ill people even though one could tally up the lives saved and make a case for such. This principle is true for the right of self ownership just as it is for the right of freedom of speech. There can be no grand tally of who's freedom of speech is protected in order to determine correct legislation because to the extent that anyone's speech is infringed upon, the potential exists for everyone speech to be infringed upon.

You present the argument that well this may be the case and so future laws will simply be needed in order to correct any government excesses. This may sound like a comforting solution however creating new unjust laws to correct the problems of prior unjust laws creates a confusing and unnavigable network of laws under which one may never know if one is in violation.

It is much easier to simply protect the rights of individuals and allow them, through their voluntary interactions, determine what is right for them individually. These interactions then taken as a sum represent what is best for the collective. I will repeat my argument that this principle would promote an environment of free and open Internet access so long as government allows the competitive market to exist without coercive regulation.

When one Internet service provider introduces a policy of censorship and restricted network access, they open a window for a competitor to provide free and open access and thereby capture a greater marketshare. When Government or a company sees an opportunity to consolidate power or marketshare against the best interests of the consumers or populace, regulation is the very instrument required and employed in order to prevent normal competitive market forces from working in the best interests of those consumers. It is almost always done under the rhetoric of protecting the rights or the interests of the people however the effect is invariably the protection of existing corporate interests to the detriment of any potential competitors at the cost of greater choice and value to the consumer.

Regarding your point number two ) monopolies may only exist in effect under the protection of government collusion creating too high an obstacle for any potential competitor to enter the marketplace. In a free market if a Business provides a good or service at such an economic advantage to the consumer that all of the competitors are unable to compete it may be described as a monopoly. It is a legitimate monopoly if this status was achieved free from any coercive market manipulation on the part of the government and as such the status of that business as a monopoly represents its ability to deliver the greatest good to its consumers. A monopoly achieved through protective regulation that inhibits competition is not legitimate and exists only as a boon from government.

The status of a legitimate monopoly is dynamic and precarious. At any point a competitor discovering a new process, new invention or new resource may challenge the monopoly in the competitive marketplace. Any government policy which inhibits competition serves only to stagnate the normal course of innovation that characterizes the free marketplace. In the case of network neutrality this would also serve to inhibit the ability of the marketplace to adapt to the public's inherent desire for freedom of speech in Internet communication.

Rights don't exist, but at the same time, freedom isn't something the government can give you; it's something they don't take. It's gross to say that we need the govt to give us freedom. He needs to open up a history book.

That depends on how you define "freedom". If government gives people the resources to do things they otherwise would not have been able to do, it has increased their freedom in a very real sense. If you don't realize this, you won't understand why social programs, public education, socialized medicine, etc. have so much appeal.

Hi, could you please explain more? I see your point about distinguishing between positive and negative liberty, but I'm confused about your belief on freedom in general. If freedom isn't a right, then what is it?

What establishes this right? Who ordains a right? If you're religious, you will say 'God' and that will put an end to this conversation, but if you're an atheist, you will say 'nobody' and I will say, 'exactly.'

It's not a popular viewpoint, to say that rights aren't ordained, because your "right" to life is guaranteed only by your own ability to maintain it, as well as the help that give/receive from others to help maintain their's.

The government is there to protect your freedom. Without it we know what happens - oligarchs gain control and limit freedoms/turn you into serfs to maintain it, or invaders turn you into slaves, if you live.

Without the organisation and accountability that a truly democratic government brings, your freedoms are stripped from you.

The argument is not that government should not exist, but rather that government exist for the purpose of defending the natural rights of the individual's in the society - life, liberty and property. It can defend those rights through having a police and legal system to capture and prosecute criminals, title and court system to establish and defend claims to private property and enforce contracts. None of these things require that you hold that it is the government that gives you your rights.

It may seem like this distinction is semantic, but it is actually very important. If we all believe that our rights are granted to us by the constitution then it creates 2 classes of humans - those who are citizens and have rights and those who are noncitizens who then have no basis to claim the protection of any rights. It is just this mentality which allows many to feel justified in the indefinite detention of foreign enemy combatants or the killing of enemy combatants by drones outside of a direct conflict and without due process of law - they aren't citizens so they shouldn't have the right to Habeus corpus or a fair trial. It all sounds great until you imagine what would happen if the forces of the state were turned against you or a cause you believe in.

People on both sides of the popular political spectrum have issues and causes that are dear to them which the other side is vehemently opposed - take gun rights on the right and the right to life issue on the left. Choose whichever one you have an affinity for. Now imagine that the opposing political party achieved tremendous success in elections and swept the house, senate and presidency. A bunch of supreme court justices retired and they packed the court with extremist judges on their side. The cards are totally stacked against your cause.

Now imagine that they made your cause a central issue and pushed it big in the media - whipping the public that supported them into a frenzy over your cause. They make the case that people in your movement are a dire threat to our nation and can no longer be tolerated. If we accept that rights are granted by the government, we could imagine a scenario where this fictional govt pass a law that states that if you are found to associate or support certain groups affiliated with these causes - then the government can strip you of your citizenship. Suddenly you may find yourself without the protection of the law that you thought you had. You could be subject to the same sort of treatment that we see in gitmo, and what legal recourse could you have? You aren't a citizen anymore so those rights don't belong to you. One suddenly wishes that those rights were respected regardless of nationality.

If we instead hold that these rights belong to all mankind by nature of their humanity, then we establish a framework where a government that respects those rights cannot strip you of them by simply removing your citizenship status. The American government was conceived as that type of government. Read our bill of rights and you will discover that it does not state that it gives all citizens the right to free speech, religion etc. Instead, it says in absolute and unyielding language that the government shall make no law constraining those freedoms - not in relation to citizens, but in relation to persons. Even a foreigner has a guarantee that the US government will not infringe on their rights.

Contrast the US constitution with the UN declaration of human rights and the old soviet union constitution, both of which use language that claims that rights are granted by the respected governments. In America the rights are not granted by the government - but they are protected by the government (or at least should be).

Now this is all just a hypothetical thought experiment meant to illustrate the importance of inherent rights vs granted rights but our government has already attempted to do this exact thing. Read a bit about the Enemy Expatriation Act that was proposed earlier this year and you can see that people thinking that rights are granted by the government are trying to find ways to allow the govt to act outside of its constitutional bounds by stripping suspects of their citizenship. It's not just theoretical.

Understanding the inherent nature of the rights and the difference between how the US constitution relates to rights vs soviet union or the UN brings up another feature of these rights - they are decidedly undemocratic. The majority cannot simply vote to take away rights from the minority. This is absolutely vital to a just and sustainable government and these factors are the true reason that America has lasted so long without falling into open oligarchy and despotism.

I'd say they're a social agreement between groups of people demarcating "I, representing social enity A, won't go there".

So they don't really "exist", they're more of an agreement of terms. Or, as Carlin put it,:

Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. But if you think you do have rights, let me ask you this, "where do they come from?" People say, "They come from God. They're God given rights." Awww fuck, here we go again...here we go again.

Natural rights can be understood to be principles that would exist in the absence of any other formal external structure. We talk about them as logically self evident rules that precede the formation of any government.

The clearest example is the right to self preservation (life). Essentially, any man or woman, when confronted with a lethal threat is justified in taking actions for self preservation.

It is difficult to suggest that this self-evident principle is not true or does not exist. Other principles of natural law follow in a similar fashion.

The thing is that natural laws don't have to be agreed upon - they are self evident. Just as "I think, therefore I am" is self evident "I live, therefore I should be able to preserve myself" is self evident.

The thing is that natural laws don't have to be agreed upon - they are self evident.

But what is self-evidence to one is not self-evident to another.

Just as "I think, therefore I am" is self evident "I live, therefore I should be able to preserve myself" is self evident.

Nope. The notion behind Descartes statement is that in order to deny the conclusion you have to assert the claim. That is, to say "I don't exist" is to assert a thinking I. Now as it happens there are some serious problems with Descartes argument, not the least of which is what does "think" mean. Can't a non-thinking entity assert "I don't exist" just as easily?

Anyway, it appears that you wish to assert that the most basic of ideas - that one can act to perserve one's life - is not self evident or could be understood to not be evident from some hypothetical perspective. I would be interested to hear a good example of such a rationale.

I see your perspective here. However you cannot exclude human rationality from the equation when dealing with topics that are based soley upon the rationale of humans.

As humans evaluating concepts of human interaction we bring another element to our evaluation of how we interact with one another. It is an understanding of what it is to exist. Our assessment of the self-evidence of concepts dealing with our existence takes this into account. It is more than just the color or physical nature of something. Because each one of us knows what it is to exist and to live - we understand the value of our own life and can therefore see the rationale of self preservation as an inherent right.

That something is blue is only evident in so far as the perceiver knows what blue is and and comprehend it. The same is true with the right of self preservation. That one is human and can understand the value of it makes it self evident.

I see your perspective here. However you cannot exclude human rationality from the equation when dealing with topics that are based soley upon the rationale of humans.

If your argument is that people tend to protect themselves, sure. They also tend to grab things if they can. They also seem to share an inate notion of fairness with other apes. Is "things should be fair" a self-evidence natural right?

Excellent point - when one starts to conceive of self-evident rights of natural law, issues of theft usually follow quickly after issues of self preservation.

It does not follow that the right to self preservation leads to a right to theft of the property of others. That is a distortion and mis-statement of natural law.

The natural law regarding property is that you cannot take property from other people without their consent. You mention peoples tendency to grab things if they can - that is only half of the idea. One who wants to grab things implicitly also wants to keep the things that they already have.

That humans want to grab things if they can is not an indictment against them, but rather a statement of fact. All things being equal, if you can choose between getting an apple for free or having to pay a dollar for it, you will choose the free option. Mankind has always thrived on this idea - it is what drives all human interactions. The fact that different people value different things allows for a marketplace where people voluntary exchange things and each feels that they have received greater value than they gave - fulfilling this tendency to 'grab things' if they can.

When someone steps outside the realm of voluntary interactions, then you violate natural law. So a thief that takes a coat from someone without their consent is acting against this natural law. We can understand this to be true because each of us values our own property and would act to preserve it.

It is true that the victim could instead voluntarily consent to give the coat to the thief, but then the interaction is voluntary and they are then no longer victim or thief.

To be honest, I don't think a discussion of rights that doesn't include supposed dictation by a higher being can be objective.

My thinking is that all rights are the individuals, in a society that prioritizes the individual. Anything that isn't a right reserved by that individual would inherently have to be consensually forsaken by that person for some reason or other. Which is where I could understand ideas like enumerated powers of government, social contracts, and consent of the governed. All of it rooted in a form of consensual and free association.

I would love to get more into it, but I'm at work on my cell. So I apologize for some vagueness.

It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect — that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few. They consequently are instruments of injustice. The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a contract with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist. -Paine

Natural rights, to me, is a form meets function argument. Not a 'what is moral' argument. I guess that's semantics though.

If my form has the potential to walk at my own nerve system command, then I may or may not walk using my own body signals.

If my form had the potential to walk at another person's nerve system command, such as there are nerve cords going from someone else to me, then I may or may not walk depending on what signals they sent me.

Since the human body form is closed on itself in terms of neurons and nerve connections, and we aren't all collectively linked in that way, our function is also closed on this level. We are only made open through voluntary communication (suggestion) or through physical force.

So, if someone told me that it is morally wrong to shoot a man, no matter what, if he is coming at me with a gun to kill me, I would say that, subjectively, I believe I had the natural right to shoot him back. Natural rights only exist subjectively just like the belief in God exists subjectively to each individual. Additionally, I would argue that natural human form and function are inherently programmed in most humans to protect and take care of themselves.

When we do not eat, we feel hunger. When we do not drink any liquids, we feel thirst. Doing so too much leads to us losing our form and function. The reason for this is most likely because life evolved that way over billions of years unless you believe in creation. If it hadn't, or if it hadn't been created that way, well, then just imagine an organism that doesn't feel hunger or thirst and that it doesn't autonomously eat or drink, either, or it would at least sometimes forget to eat or drink. It probably wouldn't last very long and therefore wouldn't reproduce.

Hence, self defense is a natural autonomous function imo and we should be mindful that natural rights is a religious term while form meets function is the more proven scientific term. Which is very strange to me, since I'm used to the word 'natural' being a scientific term.

The 'laws' referred to in 'natural law' are conceptual frameworks - not the inviolate truths of the hard sciences or the legal entities of governments.

When governments are formed, the laws that are made may or may not conform to those conceptual frameworks. Reading the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, one might be able to infer that some of these concepts were considered in the formation of the American government.

sure. the law of gravity. you want to come back with a better request, maybe?

"natural law" is usually shorthand for "principles that people should follow in order to have a working society", in a political context. and that includes things such as "not polluting, not abridging people's rights to speak, not using violence against people, not imprisoning people, not forcing people to fork over 40% of their income to pay for wars and 'bailouts' of banks, not using 'drone airplanes' to bomb children in poor countries" - you know, universal human principles of not being an asshole.

Your definition of natural laws makes it impossible to jail people for capitol crimes, makes it wrong for states to establish religion, doesn't allow for the use of violence to defend yourself and has a host of other issues.

See people use "Natural Law" all the time to refer to a lot off different things - for example it is often used by the religious to impose their will and the commands of their holy books upon the general population.

Your definition of natural laws makes it impossible to jail people for capitol crimes, makes it wrong for states to establish religion, doesn't allow for the use of violence to defend yourself and has a host of other issues.

did i not make an exemption for self-defense? well, add that in there. i don't consider self-defense to be "against natural law".

other than that, great. no more prisons, state religions, or "a host of other issues" (what, specifically?).

jails shouldnt exist. the innocence or guilt is determined by the court system, but the sentence is determined by the victim (or victims family if theyre dead). they can choose retribution or restitution. its theirs to decide, as society has no stake in whatever agreement they come to. incarceration was invented by monarchs in order to eliminate political adversaries and still claim to be "fair and just." we still the same shit going on today in democracies, as in the case of Bradley Manning.

Sounds like a plan. It seems to me that rights, if the belief is that the individual has priority, come from the person themselves, and that governments restrict them for one reason or another. Maliciously or altruistically. I think people are just afraid to say "they come from me" because they would be in the position to have to defend that assertion. While saying they're god given puts the basis entirely on whether god exists or not. That used to work when a vast majority believed in the same god.

It seems to me that rights, if the belief is that the individual has priority, come from the person themselves, and that governments restrict them for one reason or another.

If rights are about interactions between people then how can they come from the individual? How do you "naturally" deal with a disagreement on what is rights? (Not to mention what is taking or what is property."

I think people are just afraid to say "they come from me" because they would be in the position to have to defend that assertion.

To some extent, yes. There is a widespread position here that somehow each libertarian is inherently an expert in all ways and that everyone else is an idiot. So we get pronouncements on ontology, on morality, on water law, on burying the dead. People who never thought about the issue know absolutely what is the right way for everyone else to do things.

If rights are about interactions between people then how can they come from the individual? How do you "naturally" deal with a disagreement on what is rights? (Not to mention what is taking or what is property."

I never said they're about interactions between people. A right to search for that which sustains your life doesn't actually require interaction with other people.

I suppose how you settle a disagreement between what a right is between different parties really depends on the people involved and how bad they want it, and how much they're willing to lose for it.

You have a right to try to preserve your own existance, which really equates that you have a right to achieve that which you can attain. People, or things can hinder you, sure, but you have that right to try.

There's much you can attain without interacting with anyone. The only time a definition of rights really matters is when 2 or more parties are in conflict, and then they have to come to some form of agreement. Otherwise you essentually have the right to do what you will, how you will, when you will. Right? Without a conflict to beg the question, there's no limiting factor except physical restrictions.

I've always understood natural rights to be that state in which you would exist absent other people, or organizations. I may be doing a bad job of describing what I mean, to be honest.

I'm wondering, why do rights require personal interactions? Wouldn't a right be there regardless of the existance of external parties?

So there is no natural right to use violence to protect myself from another person. Certainly no natural right to use violence to protect my goods from theft.

To be fair, there's a raging debate on whether or not people can actually own anything.

You have a right to protect yourself from predators, do you not? Hence, violence for self preservation.

Asserting your position is not an argument, it is not even an explanation.

I'm curious how it could be otherwise.

Like many other subjects, like on the roles and power of governments, economic systems, and so on, it really depends on the priorities of the people involved. So in order to do anything on the matter, those priorities have to be stated.

No, what Woz is saying government does not have the monopoly to restrict freedoms - big business is perfectly capable of that as well. Woz may not understand fictional natural law, but he certainly seems to understand reality as is.